Red, Black, Blue
by hobbitsdoitbetter
Summary: In the aftermath of the Sao Paulo hospital fire Natasha Romanova finds herself at a cross-roads: can she finally stop running on empty and deal? Little does she know that one call by a cocky archer and a badass pencil-pusher will change her life forever- And perhaps help her finally find peace. Formerly titled "The Suit," AU movie/comics elements. Rating will probably rise.
1. The Suit

_Disclaimer: This fan-fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta-read so all mistakes are mine. This is set in the same universe as my other Avengers' story, "Trust," but can be read as a stand-alone. I haven't decided whether this will be a one-shot yet. _

**THE SUIT**

The Suit's staring at her.

Not at her injuries (which would be understandable, if tiresome).

Not at her breasts or her ass (which would be useful, and might mean she could turn it to her advantage and escape).

No, The Suit's staring right into her eyes, this… calm look on his face. Almost pitying. Certainly judging. Like he's examining a particularly unusual type of rock or fungus, which he may or may not find a use for but which is his to examine all the same. Tasha's been picked up by various American security agencies before, CIA and NSA mainly; She knows that if he were with them he'd have drugged her or started on the torture by now, the better to get something out of her before her (inevitable) jailbreak. But she doesn't appear to have been drugged, and there's been no mention of physical persuasion. _They haven__'__t even asked her what she was doing in Sao Paulo, or what her employer wanted with the doctor__'__s daughter_. It's possible, as always, that they don't know she was there but Tasha doubts it: That little shit with the bow who ruined her getaway looked right at her, and she saw him talking to The Suit here right before he disappeared into the night-

Which means the man before her knows what she was doing at the hospital, and doesn't give a fuck about it. _If he did he__'__d be threatening her with exposure or jail-time by now, but he__'__s not_. Which means, Tasha thinks, that he's probably brought her here to offer her a new job, her particular skill-set being as rare as it is.

_After all, seasons come and seasons go but there__'__s only one Black Widow_-

So she grins, slow and smoky, the smile that usually gets her what she wants.

The Suit just stares at her.

Tasha forces back a small moue of surprise, unwilling to let him see it.

He must do though, because it prompts him to finally speak.

"You're not my type, Ms. Romanova," he says, his voice mild. Uninflected.

He sounds like a man ordering a coffee, not someone threatening her to get her to talk. She's not really surprised, at least that's what she tells herself. Not that it's the first time she's faced such apparent mildness. _In fact, in her experience the quiet ones really are the ones you have to watch. _But Tasha still takes in his clothes, his perfectly brushed hair, his manicured hands, and picks the insult she believes will have the most impact with such a conservative man.

_After all, it__'__s not like she can__'__t have some fun while he works up the nerve to offer her a new gig. _

So she grins. "I understand," she says coquettishly. "Many men like you would feel intimidated by a woman like me…"

The Suit raises his eyebrows, looks at her mildly. "That's the best you've got?" he asks her, pulling out a phone and sending a text message as she shakes her head. "And here, I thought I was dealing with a living legend." She reads, _You sure about this one, Clint? _upside down on his android's view screen but she can't make out the number the text is sent to. The Suit doesn't wait for a reply though, just places the phone on the table beside him and regards her coolly, his arms held loose by his sides. This time though he looks a little disappointed, and Tasha is surprised at the flash of annoyance this reaction brings: She's the Black Widow, dammit.

_Pencil-pushers like this little man do not get to stare at her like __**that**__. _

But someone needs to tell him that. "Look, Ms. Romanova," The Suit says, "I'm sure you've guessed that we know who you are, and we're aware of what you were doing in Sao Paulo. Even if Agent Barton hadn't caught you in the act, you reputation precedes you, черная вдова."

Tasha gives a small smile, inclining her head slightly. It's a measure of professional courtesy, addressing her with her original call-sign.

"You flatter me," she says coyly. "I like that."

The Suit shoots her a look best described as epically unimpressed. "I'm not a mark, Ms. Romanova," he says. "Batting your eyelashes won't get you very far-"

"Well then, what will?" She bats her eyelashes. For devilment. "Get me far, that is. Since you apparently don't like being spoken to as if I'm interested in you, любовник- "

And she leans forward, grateful only her hands are cuffed and that she's not tied to anything. The pose also has the added bonus of giving The Suit a wonderful view right down her cleavage, and she knows how well _that_ usually works in employment negotiations. But though he looks The Suit doesn't stare, and he doesn't seem particularly impressed by what he sees.

In fact, for the first time he looks at her with genuine distaste.

"One hundred and seventeen people are dead, Ms. Romanova," he says quietly. "Twenty-six of them children, seventy of them either hospital staff or too old and infirm to flee. It's miracle the fire you started didn't spread to the tenements beside the hospital, and we'll be sifting through the debris for weeks- All so one crooked politician didn't get caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and one witness wouldn't live to charge him with corruption." He stands for the first time, leans over her. Again he flicks open his phone and this time there are images on the android screen. Smoke. Flames. Bloodied corpses.

Suddenly Tasha can se just how tightly this man is holding his temper in.

Suddenly she realises why.

"So no," he continues, "I don't want to stare down your blouse, and I don't care to exchange witty repartee with a woman who just murdered innocent civilians for profit. I don't want to hear the Black Widow offer me her services, and I don't want to give her a chance to get off scot-free. I want to show her what she did." He takes a deep breath, forcing himself into calmness. Suddenly the mild-mannered man he was when she came into this room is back in charge again and Tasha can't help but be intrigued by the transformation. Because he's still holding the phone in front of her face.

"So all that being the case, stop acting like a third rate Bond Girl and ask me why you're still alive, Ms. Romanova," The Suit says quietly. "Show me some sliver of the legend my agency has been chasing for twenty years. _Please._"

And he sits back down, impassive again, gaze questioning. Puts the phone away.

He's staring at Tasha again but this time it's like she's a particularly interesting species of slime he's just discovered. A species of slime he might just decide to make extinct.

Tasha stares back at him, her gaze assessing though inwardly her stomach is twisting. Those old enemies- her emotions- threatening to come out to play. But she suppresses them sternly: There's no way the fire killed so many people, she thinks defensively, it was designed to be contained within an older ward of the hospital. There were twenty people there maximum, including staff, there was no way the death toll could be as high as The Suit had said. And besides, photos can be doctored. Images created. There's no reason she should believe what she's just been shown…

But though she tells herself he must be lying she can't make herself believe it. He sits there, staring at her like a statue of a Catholic saint, his gaze so damn assessing, and despite everything she tells herself Tasha knows deep down that he's… _That he __**might**__ be telling the truth. _Because she's not been careful in a while, running on empty, frayed at the edges. Surviving on adrenaline, on loneliness. On anger. Making her own way in the world, living by her own rules- _And recklessness is the usual result of __**that**__. _Her work for the government used to be impeccable, but it hasn't been her work for such a long time- She's been off the leash for such a long time-

It comes over her in a wave then, the realisation that The Suit probably isn't lying to her.

_Oh God, _she thinks,_ Oh God. Oh God. __**Oh God**__. __What have I done? _

She looks down at her hands and just for a moment she swears they're dripping red.

He sees it then, she thinks. Some tiny flinch, some shudder. A tightening around her eyes perhaps. A breath too-quickly taken. Or perhaps he's simply been around spies for so long that he can read the most usual tells. _Maybe, _Tasha thinks disjointedly,_ he__'__s just that good. _Whatever the case her body shudders, a shiver going through her. For a terrifying moment she feels absolutely cold, freezing even, as she thinks about what she might have done. She tries to take a deep breath but she can't, she can't get air into her lungs quickly enough. She forces her self to get some distance, breathe normally, because if she doesn't- _If she doesn't she's not sure what she'll do._ All through this The Suit simply watches her dispassionately, probably thinking that she's faking it. She's certainly more than capable of it, they both know that. _But she's not faking it today. _Eventually Tasha calms herself enough to breathe normally though, manages to bring herself to quietness. When she looks up he's still staring at her, but there's something a little… softer in his gaze, for all that his arms are crossed tightly over his chest.

"Why am I here?" she asks then, because she thinks she knows the answer.

And if she dies here, in this moment, with this strange, mild man to witness it then she supposes there are far worse ways to cease living.

_And it would be no more than she deserved. _

Maybe he reads her expression again because the man sighs, sets his hands on his knees and looks at her. She's used to superior officers trying to eyeball her, intimidate her, but this man isn't actually doing that. "You're here, Ms. Romanova," he says, "Because one of my finest agents says you shouldn't be executed.

He says that you should be given a chance, at least, to show us what you can do."

Tasha licks her lips carefully, sure now where this is going. They're going to ask her to go after the employer who ordered the hit on the hospital she thinks. Going to re-frame another murder as an act of retaliation or even justice.

"And what do you think I can do?" she asks quietly, her heart pounding despite her best efforts.

It's been a long time since she's been as rattled as this.

"I think," The Suit says, "that you can be compassionate, Ms. Romanova. I think that you can be something more than a KGB experiment or a mass-murderer for hire, and I'm going to offer you a chance to prove it to me, and to yourself."

And with that The Suit tells her of an organisation run by a man she used to know quite well when she was younger. Tells her of an agent he's trained- _Barton, he calls him- _who's looking for a partner, and who thinks she'd do well for the job. There would be no glory, The Suit tells her, no prestige or money like she's grown used to working freelance. She'll be bound by law and watched night and day, she'll be a government servant on a government pay-packet, and she'll probably be treated with disgust and suspicion from the get-go by people who know her by reputation alone. But she won't ever be in the position she was in when she set fire to that hospital, this he promises her.

_And if she's blood on her hands this time, there'll be a damn good reason it's there_.

"So what do you say, Ms. Romanova?" he asks her. "Are you in?"

For a long time Tasha stares at him, not sure how to answer. Every ounce of her training is telling her to take this chance and then escape intact, every ounce of the person who isn't a living weapon is screaming at her not to trust this man and his promises of something new. Something better. _She doesn't deserve something better, and she doesn't need another atrocity on her conscience to tell her that_. But though she opens her mouth to lie- _she's not sure what the lie will be yet, but she knows it will be untrue_- something stops her. Maybe it's the way The Suit's looking at her, maybe it's the way he described the agent who saved her, this Barton who doesn't know her from Adam and yet made a call not to let her die.

"What's your name?" she asks instead and he blinks at her, surprised.

_It's mutual. She didn't know she was going to ask him that. _

"Coulson," he answers. "Philip Aaron Coulson. S.H.I.E.L.D agent, first class. You can call me- Well, you can call me Agent. Everyone else does."

Just for a moment she swears he's going to smile but he quashes it.

Tasha finds herself curious about what that smile might look like but she pushes the thought away.

Slowly though, unsure of what she's really doing, Tasha holds her own hand out to him. She's not entirely certain her decision's been made yet, but here they both are.

"I'm Natalya Alianovna Romanova, Agent Phillip Coulson," she says. "It's going to be a pleasure working with you." She hesitates. "Just know that if you are lying to me, I will find everyone you love and I will skin them. Alive. This is my promise to you." For a beat she looks down, discomfited.

"I will never be a puppet on a string again."

This time his smile is genuine. "Haven't you been in this business long enough to know an empty threat when you make one?" he tells her. "People like us don't have loved ones to lose."

And with that he pulls out his cell-phone. Starts typing a text-message. _Okay, so I now owe you a steak dinner, Clint_, she reads on the phone-screen. _Just don't tell Hill or we'll never hear the end of it. From her __**or**__ from Fury. _Tasha wonders as she reads is who this Clint is, this man who thinks he knows her so damn well. Who's been telling Philip Coulson about her. Who's persuaded S.H.I.E.L.D. she shouldn't be put down like the mad dog her former masters always told her she'd become. Her curiosity doesn't disappear as she follows Coulson out of the detention centre, warily eyeing him, hoping her trust isn't misplaced-

While unseen on the building opposite her interrogation room, Clint Barton watches her leave with his handler.

He wonders to himself when this started feeling like a good idea and hopes he's not wrong that it is-

_Because he doesn't really want to think about how wrong this could go._

* * *

_черная вдова: Black Widow_

_любовник: Lover (m)_

_A/N So what do you think? Reviews are always welcome. _


	2. The Archer

Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read so all mistakes are my own. Thanks for their reviews go to jakefan and Timewalker05

**THE ARCHER**

The first time Tasha meets Clint Barton in the flesh, she's broken into his apartment.

It's not like it's the first time she's done something like this. She has, after all, that very specific skill-set of hers to maintain. And it's not like she's willing to wait around and have The Suit- Coulson- introduce them. No, she needs to get the drop on this Barton, show him who he's dealing with. Show him that, whatever he might think he knows about her, she's not going to play nice with the other puppies in the sand-box and he'd best make his peace with that fact now. But mainly, she just needs to look the man who's saved her life, however ill-advisedly, in the eye and get the measure of him-

It's part curiosity and part professional courtesy, and if there's one thing Tasha prides herself on it's her professionalism.

_Besides, she wants to know what on Earth he was thinking, making the call that saved her skin, and she sure as Hell doesn't think he'll give a straight answer to that in front of Agent Coulson._

It's not difficult, finding out where he lives. Ten minutes in her new accommodations, (a S.H.I.E.L.D safe-house somewhere in the Meat-Packing District) and access to a tablet- stolen from one of her keepers' bags- are all she needs. _That and a security detail who'd clearly love be anywhere but here._ See, Coulson letting her read that text message had been a mistake; Once she knew when it had been sent and from who, hacking into the network's server was child's play. Activating the GPS chip in Barton's cell had taken even less time than that, and giving her handlers the slip had taken barely a second at all. One unconscious civilian later and she's driving a stolen bike through New York, homing in on the location of the man who'd saved her for no damn reason-

It takes her less than ten minutes to get into his building and approximately sixty seconds to break his locks.

Once she's inside his apartment though, she stops dead.

Tasha's been an agent all her life, from the Red Room to the KGB and all the many possible stops in between; She knows how the average spy lives and what it looks like. Clean spaces, easy to leave at a moment's notice and revealing nothing of their inhabitants' lives, are de rigueur if one is examining the living quarters of an agent. Booby-traps are also likely, as well as the use of silent alarms. But Clint Barton's apartment is nothing like that. For one thing, it is, demonstrably, a pigsty. There are pizza boxes everywhere, papers all over the place. Arrow boxes are stacked haphazardly against one wall- _She remembers his weapon of choice_- with every other surface covered in a bric-a-brac concoction of junk, junk and more junk.

_It looks like the bedroom of a twelve year old boy._

An old, yellow-haired dog snoozes lazily in a corner beside the TV, his nose on a pizza box. Barton himself dozes on a beat-up, leopard-print couch, his head lolling back against the couch's cushions and Tasha is surprised by how young he looks in sleep. Slowly, silently as a ghost, she steals forward, wanting to take him by surprise, show him how easily she found him. Though she's suspicious- _Surely it can't be **this **easy to break into his place?_- she's still determined to see this through, and if he's faking his slumber he's doing a damn good job of it. _In fact, he might almost be as good an actor as **her**. _With infinite care she moves forward, reaching out to pick up a battered old lamp from the table beside him; The chord is nice and long, it would make a suitable garrotte. Tasha twines it around her hands, pulling the wire taut as she does so-

And then suddenly three quick steps thud behind her- _OneTwoTHREE!_- And she feels the edge of what can only be an arrow pressing into her temple.

Tasha swings around, yanking the lamp with her, tossing it like a mace, and as she does so she realises she is being threatened by a child.

Not a complete child, she allows as her opponent ducks backward, avoiding the projectile by knocking it away with her bow. The girl before her is no more than sixteen or seventeen, her thick bangs and dark hair adding to the school-girl air about her. The fact that she's wearing purple, fluffy slippers with white and lilac pyjamas completing the juvenile effect. As soon as she knocks away the lamp Barton wakes, going from groggy to hunter-sharp so quickly it's very impressive; In one swift, fluid motion he's out of the chair, barrelling into Tasha. One hand at her throat, one in her hair, taking no prisoners. Using his greater weight to force her off her feet and screw her balance. It doesn't work though: Before he can do so she manages to knock the lamp at his knee, making him yelp as she turns and makes to grab her bow from the young girl's hands. The girl's grip is impressive and she refuses to part with it, bringing it down with pin-point accuracy on Tasha's throat even as her knee strikes out at her midriff with equal force. Tasha dodges again, dancing back and as she does so her spine collides with Barton's body, the force of it surprising them both-

"Kate," Barton's saying, "Jesus, Kate, take it easy-"

His arms have come up to restrain Tasha under her oxters.

"Take it easy?" the girl snaps. "_Take it easy?_ Someone just broke in here and you want me to take it easy?"

And she snarls, bringing another arrow upwards and notching it to her bow. Bringing it up to point, once again, at Tasha. Without missing a beat Barton jerks Tasha towards the couch with one hand as he pushes the bow away from her with the other.

_The movement is impressively fast, especially for a man who's only a highly trained normal, and despite herself Tasha feels a smidgeon of respect._

"The redhead I told you about, you remember her?" he's saying. "The one in Sao Paulo? The one Phil sent me to eliminate?" The girl gives him a mutinous nod. "Well, it looks like she decided to join us: Tasha Romanova, meet Kate Bishop. Finest bowman I've ever met and twenty-four-seven pain in my ass." The girl- Kate- snarls a string of impressively creative insults but one look at Barton and she subsides a little. There's no doubt in Tasha's mind who the dominant in this relationship is, and it's not this little doll. Once Bishop puts down the bow and stalks a couple of steps away Barton loosens his grip on Tasha. He's watching her warily as he does so though, and she reluctantly scales her opinion of his intelligence up. "You were expecting me," she says, because that's obvious.

_She'd known he would be, after all._

Barton shoots her a grin which should be infuriating, it drips such obvious self-confidence and smugness. "Thought you might drop by," he says. "Phil knew it was a possibility. You use the phone to track me?" She nods. He grins. "Score one for Hawkeye. Coulson said I was being too obvious about that shit-"

Tasha's not in the mood for his self-congratulation and her expression says so.

Irritatingly enough, that seems to make Barton grin more.

"Katie-Kate," he tells the girl instead, "How's about you go back to the spare bedroom? I got this."

Katie-Kate snorts, the sound somewhere between amusement and disdain. "Oh really, bird-boy?"

"Yes, really." Barton nods his chin towards a door to his left. "Stay in there. Don't listen in. You're not an agent and this is need-to-know, yeah?"

"And the stuff in Sao Paulo wasn't?" Bishop huffs. She's scuffing a slippered toe along the carpet.

Barton shoots her a Look. "Yeah, it was. But I needed you to stop worrying when I turned up in all my multi-hued, dripping-blood glory, so I put your peace of mind ahead of my security clearance. You know, because I'm a saint." She cocks an eyebrow at him and he grins winningly. "Now vamoose, grass-hopper. Me and Xenia Onatopp here got secret spy stuff to discuss."

For a moment it looks like Bishop is going to argue but she dutifully stands up and pads into the bedroom. She gives a martyred sigh as she does it, every inch the teenage girl. "You break him, I break you," she mutters darkly at Tasha before disappearing inside and slamming the door behind her. Barton shakes his head in amusement at her words, something soft and warm moving through his expression. Tasha isn't sure why but it makes her angry, and, as she so often has these last few years when she's angry, she lashes out. "Pretty little piece of ass," she says, because she knows what that girl's doing here this late at night and it's not archery practice.

A flicker of annoyance passes through Barton's expression and Tasha files it away, a useful piece of information about his weaknesses.

_You can never know enough about another person's weaknesses, after all._

"You think she'd be here for that?" he asks instead though. "Pretty, smart girl like her?" He gestures to himself. "Dumbass trick-shot like me? I'm old enough to be her father and Kate's not got the daddy issues for that set up." He makes a show of looking at Tasha. Waggles his eyebrows. For some reason she doesn't want to examine, Tasha thinks that punching him seems pretty attractive right about now. "You, on the other hand," he continues. "Vilniev, Koborkin, that attaché with the Finnish embassy you skewered back in '72. _That's_ a girl with daddy issues-"

"I had orders, I followed them," she snaps. "My father had nothing to do with it." And she goes back to glaring at him, fingers itching to hit him. идиот, she thinks. самодовольный, самодовольного идиота. Because she knows how this will go, knows the bullshit she's about to sit through. An agent who uses sex to get what she wants is a whore, a man who does the same is a patriot. Seventy years of life, twenty of them thinking the Communists were going to remake the world, and this same conversation's still coming back to haunt her. "Besides, it's not like I'm surprised," she says. "A man like you would need someone simple, naïve, to come home to-"

There's a crash in the next room and something which sounds distinctly like Kate yelling, "Bite me!" but Barton does nothing other than smile. "Think she heard you," he says. "Don't think she agrees with you. She did once described the idea of sleeping with me as worse than being stuck sucking face with a boy flying-monkey from _The Wizard of Oz_…" He shrugs. Suddenly his eyes narrow. "But that's not why you're here. You didn't risk Phil Coulson declaring you an escaped prisoner because you wanted to talk about my sex life."

He looks straight at her. "So tell me what you want to know."

Tasha frowns, and for a moment silence reigns entirely. She's not certain why her barbs aren't finding their target, not when she saw how he felt about the girl in his expression just moment's ago. Not when he knows who she is and what she is. Not when she went and broke into his home. But Barton's still looking at her and his expression's patient. There's something, almost an echo of that softness she saw in him when he looked at Kate Bishop and the realisation brings yet another wave of anger, this time tinged with bewilderment, in its wake. _What on Earth does he think he sees when he looks at me?_ But though time ticks by, though she has trouble summoning the words, she knows she still has to ask the question she came here for. Her breaking in, her slipping her guards in S.H.I.E.L.D, will be for nothing if she doesn't.

She's risked her life to come here, she realises, she can't back away now.

So she takes a deep breath and focuses on Barton. "The Suit- Coulson- said that it was recommended I not be eliminated," she says quietly. "He indicated that you had something to do with that."

Barton nods. "I did. Saw some of your work in the field, thought it was a good call, and now look what's happened: I got home-invaded. Beaten up. Kate's pissed at me." He shrugs. "No good deed and all that…"

Tasha fights the urge to roll her eyes again, frustrated with his flippancy. Instead though she focuses on Barton, gives him her best ingénue stare. "But why would you make that call?" she asks him bluntly. "You know my past, you know what I do for money." She forces herself to keep her voice calm as she speak to him, summons her best, stoic, unfeeling Black Widow stare. "Why did you suggest I shouldn't be killed?" She asks him.

"Your actions make no sense."

For a long moment Barton simple stares at her, his eyes unreadable. It's a bit of a shock, after his last few minutes of affable openness, to see that he can switch his emotions on and off so easily. _And in that moment Tasha can see that he is every inch a spy._ "There was a guy I knew once," he says eventually. "Got on S.H.I.E.L.D's radar in a bad way. Followed a pretty face down a rabbit-hole, spent a whole lot of time making other people pay the price for how stupid he knew he'd let himself be. It was a mess." He shrugs, looks down to stare at his hands. Frowns at them. Tasha finds herself leaning closer in. "This guy, he did some really bad shit," Barton says. "A lot of people got hurt, a lot of people lost everything. A lot of people ended up very, very dead. But no matter how far he fell he couldn't stop himself. He said he was… helpless, to make a change to what he was doing. He said… He said he was fortune's bitch, that _she_ was making the calls." He snorts. "Fucking moron."

Tasha's voice seems too loud in the stillness. "So what happened?"

Barton looks at her. And just for a moment he looks almost as old as she. "Someone stopped him," he says. "Put the breaks on. Made certain he knew it was a one-time only deal, that next time he'd have to do for himself. Offered him the chance for something other than freefall, told him that he could plummet like a rock or fly." He looks away, his gaze suddenly distant. His hands twitch, just for a moment towards his bow. "Probably saved the guy's life," he says eventually. "Certainly gave him a chance to do it. Think you might need that too, Tasha. Think you might have a better track record than that guy if someone gives you a chance. Saw you in Sao Paulo, had a flash-back. Made my choice and here we are." He shrugs. "That's the long and short of it."

Tasha stares at him, trying to work out whether he's lying. His body language and tone tell her nothing, any more than hers would do for him. They're both professionals at keeping their true thoughts to themselves, after all. But despite the fact that she knows a pitch when she hears one- _second tonight and counting!_- and despite the fact that she knows there's all sorts of reasons this could all be made up, she decides to believe him. That he made the call he says he made, and now she's reaping the results. That someone... That someone saw something else in her, besides a weapon to be used. "So you think I can do as well as this man you knew?" she asks eventually. He nods. "You think I deserve a second chance?"

Barton looks at her. "I think you have to work that out, Romanova, I can't do it for you. But yeah, I think you deserve to stop freefalling."

And with that he stands up and pads to towards the other bedroom in the apartment. Not so subtly telling Tasha they're done for now. She stands up and climbs out the way she came, Barton's words still echoing in her head even as Coulson's team arrive to extract her-

She falls asleep in a strange bed, in a new world, and thinks about whether she knows what it's like not to fall.

_She does not._

* * *

Идиот: Idiot (m)

самодовольный, самодовольного идиота: Smug, smug idiot (m)


	3. The Red Shoes

_Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read so all mistakes are my own. Thanks for their reviews go to katya jade (lovely to hear from you!) and BettyBackInTheDay. The Arbat is one of the main streets in Moscow; The Red Shoes, I assume, need no explanation. _

**THE RED SHOES**

The first time she has a truly bad incident, they're in Moscow.

It's six months into her time with S.H.I.E.L.D. and she and Clint have been sent to investigate the son of an oligarch, the charmingly nick-named Mikhail "The Razor," Korbayev. They're still at the circling-each-other-warily stage of their partnership, which seems to suit everyone, from Tasha to Coulson to Fury. Even Clint seems to have reluctantly accepted it, and he usually approaches her without the flippancy he showed that first night in his apartment. Coulson briefs her and Barton before they leave for Russia, filling them in on their target as they sit in his office: The youngest son of the better-known "legitimate businessman," Dmitri, Mikhail Korbayev's been on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar for a while but has never been stupid enough to be tied to anything concrete.

_Until now, that is, _Coulson smiles.

_The oddest things make that strange little man happy, _Tasha thinks.

Because it seems Junior's getting sloppy: Art works apparently stolen by the Red Army during WW2 have been turning up in private auctions all over the US and nobody seems to be able to suitably explain where they're coming from- _Any more than they can explain why so many of them are found to have traces of grade A narcotics on their frames. _It's the drugs that tie Mikhail into the art thefts, Coulson explains, and the drugs which are going to get him sentenced: Papa Korbayev's not going to be happy that his baby boy's branching out on his own and it's doubtful he'll save his son. _To do so would just encourage others to mess with his operation. _Coulson gives them the assignment on the understanding that, should Tasha see an opportunity to get close to Junior, she takes it. Clint doesn't seem very happy about that but he keeps the notion to himself- _Or, at least he tries to, but Tasha sees it all the same. __**Weird. **_For her part, the idea of seducing Little Misha isn't particularly daunting: So much of her training in the Red Room involved seduction that she thinks she could probably do it in her sleep-

Once they arrive in Moscow and track Korbayev down, it only takes her three shots of vodka to get him back to his hotel suite and down to his boxers.

Getting herself naked, into bed with him and the deed done however?

That takes drinking nearly an entire bottle of vodka and a massive amount of willpower, so much so that by the time she drags herself back to the safe house she's sharing with Barton, Tasha feels like she's fallen off the edge of a cliff.

Because it's not like this assignment's anything special, she tells herself. She distracted a mark while her partner looted his office and she managed to plant a listening device in his phone and computer for good measure. _Which is, by any definition, a win. _And so what if she can feel the marks Korbayev left on her body as she walks, her thighs sore, her throat aching? So what if she felt like she was going to cry or run or kill the mark or _something _while he was on top of her? She knew he had a kink for hurting women, just as she knew she'd have to play up to it to get the job done. It's not like it's the first time and it won't be the last either: She does what she must to get what she wants and the rest of the world can go to Hell.

Because it doesn't matter. None of it matters.

_Nothing that has ever happened to her matters. _

And if she lets herself think it _does _matter, she'll go quietly, irrevocably insane.

So she comes back to base, makes her report with Barton. He's homesick for New York, she can tell, longing for his Katie-Kate, and Tasha doesn't have it in her to tell him what's wrong. _This is __**her **__business and hers alone. _Since they've an early start tomorrow, heading up to Novosibirsk in order to "accidentally," bump into Korbayev again she uses this as an excuse to retire, lying in the dark until she hears Barton pad into the room beside hers and then quietly, stealthily sneaking out of the safe house. Tight dress on, fuck-me heels on her feet though they're aching. A little makeup to hide her bruises, though she wears the ones on her throat like a prize. She knows this is dangerous, she knows it's not sanctioned: She's still a trainee and if Coulson discovers what she's doing he will have her hide. But it doesn't stop her from grabbing a cab, heading down to Arbat. The great boulevard is teeming with people even this late at night, brightly dressed girls in dripping jewels hanging off their boyfriends, elegantly dressed boys surrounded by massive bouncers milling through the street's casinos, waiting to be ushered inside.

A face like hers always provides opportunity and Tasha takes it. Within ten minutes she's leading a guy out to the toilets and within fifteen she's on her back, pounding the cubicle wall to her right while he fucks her hard and holds her throat, the marks of his fingers adding to the bruises she already has. He comes with a howl, his hand tightening and cutting off her breath for a second. Tasha snarls her approval, raking her hands across his cheeks, so hard that she draws blood. The guy hisses in anger and back-hands her (she'd known he would) and that's all she needs from him. She pushes him off her with every ounce of strength the super-soldier serum provided her with, knocking him through the door with vicious precision before coming at him, her fists up, her blood pumping. _A target acquired now that she's had her fun._

The guy swings at her again and misses, following through too much and nearly toppling over. When his head goes down her knee goes up, and she hears the sound of crunching bone as it makes contact with his nose. Blood spatters, the guy yells, Tasha starts pummelling his back and shoulders. He manages to pull a knife out of his jacket- _what legitimate businessman in Moscow __**wouldn't**__ carry a knife?- _but Tasha easily takes it away. Stabs him with it, snarling every swear-word she knows as she does it, twisting the blade viciously where she jams it into his thigh. The fight degenerates once she stabs him, his weight pulling him floor ward, his broken nose screwing his vision. After a while he's just a twitching mess Tasha's kicking, the impact of her foot against his body wanted and warm and real. Time seems to slow, her voice getting hoarse as she screams at him. On some level she knows she has to stop- _she could kill the guy_- but it seems like she's running on adrenaline right now. And then, just as she pulls her foot back to aim a blow at his head she feels arms wrap around her. A warm body's pulling her backwards, one calloused hand pressed against her mouth.

"Don't scream," a voice says, and it's honestly only the fact that it speaks in English that she recognises it's Barton. "This asshole's boss is looking for him outside, and you _don't _wanna have to explain what you're doing to his boy in here."

For a moment Tasha's entire body slumps, the adrenaline she's been running on apparently draining out of her. Even with her enhanced abilities she feels about a million years old, or as if she's run a million fucking miles. But when Barton releases her she turns on him, swinging a fist up to hit him, hands instinctively reaching for his side-weapon to see if he's packing. He, however, knows what she's capable of and parries the attack, pushing her back and into the prone body of her victim, which she promptly falls over. The guy makes a half-hearted grab for her but Barton kicks at his wrist, allowing Tasha a moment to scramble away.

"You wanna do this?" the archer snaps, his tone tired, frustrated. "You wanna try beating the shit outta me the way you beat the shit outta him?"

The guy on the ground hisses. "She no beat me, bro," he says in a thick Serbian accent. "She take me by surprise-"

"Shut the Hell up, idiot," Barton retorts. "I wasn't talking to you." He looks at Tasha, his gaze steady. Hawk-like. "Do. You. Want. To. Beat. Me. Up?" he asks her. _"Do you? _Or do you wanna go somewhere and get shit-faced and tell me what the Hell's wrong?"

Tasha tries to summon the requisite blood-lust to hit him, but it doesn't arrive.

It belatedly occurs to her that in all the time she's worked with him, this is the first time Barton's raised his voice to her.

"No," she snaps out eventually, pulling herself to her feet with what grace she can muster. Swaying for a moment in her heels before pulling them off and dangling them from her wrist. "No."

Barton crosses his arms. "No, you don't want to drink with me or no, you don't want to talk to me about what's going on?"

She shows her teeth, growling as she limps across the room. "Pick one."

This time a ghost of a smile moves through Barton's face and her eyes narrow. He shrugs on seeing it. "I _so_ have to introduce you to Logan," he says. "You two are gonna get on like a house on fire..."

Tasha rolls her eyes. "I just nearly beat a man to death and you're talking about introducing me to your friends?"

"Hey," the archer quips, "Can I help it if I'm a special sort of a boy?" He waggles his eyebrows. "Besides, homicidal redheads are hot: Logan and me have bonded over this. Well, this and pretzels." His expression turns serious. "But since you say I'm to pick one, I pick no, you don't want to drink which me," he says, more quietly.

"Which means you _do_ want to talk to me about what happened tonight."

Tasha gives him a look she reserves for those precious few individuals she regards as _не нормально, _crazy. "You really think I'm going to talk about it, Barton?"

He gestures to the beaten, bloodied, unfortunate probable-henchman behind him. "Uh-huh. I think you _need _to talk about it." He shakes his head. "After all, we can't find you a gangster piñata every time you feel the urge to vent: Coulson will say it's not in the budget."

"Well, thank the heavens for Coulson," she bites out tartly.

Barton gives her the oddest look. "You work with him as long as I have," he mutters, "you'll say that every day."

And with that he holds his hand out to her, steadying her. Pulling the door of the toilet open and peering into the club's darkness. Having ascertained that there's nobody waiting for them he pulls off his jacket and drapes it around her shoulders, rubbing his hands briefly down her arms to warm them before letting her step ahead of him into the club. His jacket hiding most of the evidence of her little "transgression," (though her shoes are still spotted red.) The clearly proprietary nature of the gesture marking her as unavailable for the various guys who look her over as she passes through the room. They move together, techno music pounding as they make their way to the exit. Clint's hand coming down to take Tasha's, completing the illusion of a couple heading home after a long night. His hand warm and surprisingly comforting, the calluses rough and unusual, a texture Tasha suspects she's going to one day know by heart. She stays silent as they head into a cab, stays silent as they head back to the safe house, Barton's offer to talk still pounding through her head, her unwillingness to take him up on it echoing equally loudly-

They leave for Novosibirsk on the first flight the next morning, and Tasha sleeps with Clint's coat draped over her, her partner content to leave his questions for another day.

But a hawk never really forgets anything, and Tasha soon learns this all too well.


	4. The Choice

_Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read so all mistakes are my own. And thanks to rainbowpanget for her reviews- It's lovely to hear from you again, luv. Please note there is some swearing and violence in this chapter, so be warned. _

**THE CHOICE**

Novosibirsk is a fucking disaster and she and Barton nearly get one another killed.

Turns out, Korbayev's not stupid and even the idea of cuckolding a cocky, smug American (that would be Barton) by hooking up with his bored, damaged girlfriend (that'd be Natasha) doesn't appeal. In fact, he takes one look at Tasha and Clint together and makes them as spies, telling his boys to open fire on the casino in which they meet and trying to make his getaway. Not caring that three innocent croupiers get caught in the crossfire. Not caring that the fire-fight spills out onto the street, endangering several civilians who dart for cover and hide. _But then, _Tasha thinks, _Korbayev__'__s not exactly a caring individual._

She remembers the feel of his hands around her throat, his hands between her thighs, and despite her best intentions her stomach heaves just a little bit.

Not that she can concentrate on that now though. Because she and Clint give chase, pursuing Korbayev's limo on a stolen motorcycle, slipping and sliding all over the slush-filled roads while one of the oligarch's boys shoots at them through the sun-roof. Barton swearing and muttering while Tasha returns fire with her glock (_because seriously, there__'__s no way she__'__s driving and Barton__'__s going to try shooting someone with his Goddamn bow_). The pursuit makes it as far as the train-station before the cops pull the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents over, twenty cars surrounding them, questions and abuse being hurled every which way. Threats and demands for information, identity papers being dragged out of her hands, out of Clint's. Barton manages to fish out his fake Interpol ID but the fact that he's American and has no jurisdiction means he might as well be waving a dish-rag in the assembled милиция faces for all the good it does him-

By the time they have the situation nearly sorted, Korbayev's long gone, a private jet having been summoned to take him to his summer home on the Red Sea.

Tasha goes out that night and gets so drunk she can barely stand, finds another gangster boy to fuck in a cubicle. Beats the shit out of him to work through her feelings on the matter- And then picks up her shoes and slinks home.

Which, it turns out, is the beginning of a pattern with her. They leave Russia the next morning, their covers blown, Korbayev still at large. The bitter stench of failure in Tasha's nostrils, eating away underneath her skin. _And, since failure has never been an option before, she doesn__'__t know how to deal with it now. _In the coming months she tries though; She and Barton fall into a pattern, trying. The pair of them taking missions. Fighting side by side. Bantering. Tasha stealing out afterwards and finding someone to fuck until she can sleep quietly, Barton chatting online with his Katie-Kate, pretending not to notice what she does. In Prague her chosen penance is a skinny, emo drug-dealer called- improbably- Winston. In Budapest it's a big, beefy bully with Nazi tattoos and a stud through his tongue (amongst other organs) who goes by the name of- _she__'__s not making this up- _Tiny. In Sofia it's a three-time murderer called Bogdan, in Warsaw it's a dirty cop named Wiktor who boasts to her about his thirteen year old girlfriend. In Bucharest it's an evil old bastard called Constantine Petrescu, a survivor of the old regime who runs the prostitution rings in the city's centre and who's been on Coulson's watch-list for years though The Suit's never had enough dirt to nail him. His girls start as young as twelve- _not coincidentally, that was the age at which Tasha first entered the Red Room Academy- _and none of them live to be old enough to leave him. Tasha is particularly vicious with him, and she feels no repentance for it-After all, men like Petrescu made her what she is today.

_And though she might never admit it, right now she hates that more than anything she has ever hated before. _

And maybe that's why Petrescu is the one she finally loses control with. Maybe that's why he's the one the Widow finally lets feel her bite. Because he calls her bitch one too many times before she comes and she damn near kills him. Beats him so hard with her sidearm that he's unconscious when she leaves him and she's not sure she checked to make sure he's still alive. Tasha makes her escape easily after he stops twitching, her stocking-clad feet slipping and sliding through a pool of his blood. Leaving delicate, feminine footprints throughout his mansion as she slowly makes her way to the garage and steals one of his cars, escaping in it. The sure knowledge that she's fucked up- _because if Petrescu is dead, there __**will**__ be consequences- _rattling around inside her head. The fact that she can't bring herself to care something with which she doesn't want to deal.

She doesn't know how long she drives through Bucharest afterwards, her hair slicked to her head and matted with blood, her body shivering. Numbness, her favourite companion even before the Sao Paulo fire, settling over her mind like a fog. She feels vaguely disconnected from, well, everything, and this time she hasn't even the will to make her way back to Barton and the safe house. She can't bear to hear him talk to his Katie-Kate, can't bear to hear the girl's laughter. Can't bear the bone-deep loneliness that sound brings. So she abandons the car in the roughest neighbourhood she can find- _Ferentari, the locals call it_- and starts trudging through the rain, letting it soak her, letting it pound against her until there's nothing to her but its rhythm-

At some point near the Amzei Market she collapses and she doesn't even remember falling.

She cracks her eyes open the next morning to find a worried-looking Barton watching her from the corner, Phil Coulson right beside her, practically on her lap.

"You're awake," he says then, without preamble. Chucks a thumb over his shoulder, his mild-mannered gaze unconcerned and light.

Tasha feels her stomach tie itself into knots.

"Clint here was afraid you'd caught pneumonia, but I knew better," he's saying. He shakes his head, slightly mournfully. "Super-soldier serum will do that to a girl, won't it, Natasha?"

Tasha shows Coulson her teeth, snarling in Russian even as Barton raises his eyebrows in surprise. "You didn't tell me that, Phil," he mutters.

"I figured she'd tell you eventually…" Coulson narrows his eyes at Tasha. "Once she was serious about turning over a new leaf." Something like the disgust she saw in his gaze that night in Sao Paulo moves through his expression. "Because she's really not serious about it yet-"

"Fuck you," Tasha snarls.

Coulson merely raises his eyebrows mildly. "You don't want to fuck me, Natasha. You don't want to fuck anyone." He stares at her, his gaze calm. Unruffled. The perfect fucking bureaucrat. "Besides," he says reasonably, "you're doing a pretty good job of fucking yourself…"

His words seem to catch at something inside Tasha, something that's been eating at her ever since Novosibirsk. Like a bit of her guts has gotten caught on a nail and been torn open, pain and rage and worry exploding inside her with a passion she's never before known. Because she doesn't lose her temper, she _never _loses her temper. All those years in the Red Room Academy, all those years as the Black Widow, and she was never supposed to show her rage. Never supposed to feel anything but what her handlers demanded she feel. She was a tool. A weapon. A thing that didn't _have_ feelings. She belonged to the people who made her, and everything she was belonged to them too. For a moment Tasha's painfully, terrifyingly still, her gaze locked with laser-like precision on Coulson-

And then suddenly she's on top of him. Her hands at his throat, her thighs wrapped around his chest. The huff of surprise and pain he gives like music to her ears. They tumble backwards off the bed, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent's back taking the brunt of their weight. Something cracking- _Tasha suspects it__'__s his skull but she can__'__t be sure-_ as Coulson struggles to free himself from her grip. Shifting his weight, trying to dislodge her. His slightly speeded-up breathing the only indication he gives that he's in distress. Tasha knows she's talking- screaming- because she can feel her voice working. But she genuinely hasn't the slightest idea what she's saying. _She doesn__'__t even know what language she__'__s yelling in_. Barton's out of his seat within seconds, his arms wrapped around her forearms, trying to pull her off his handler, but it does no good to either of them. She's screaming and punching and she can feel Coulson's bones underneath her knuckles as she pummels him and she knows she really should be able to but she just can't seem to stop.

"Jesus, Tasha," Barton's yelling, "Let him up- he's not trying to hurt you-"

"Иди на хуй, мудак-"

_She doesn't know what she's saying, she only knows she's angry as Hell-_

Barton reaches around and wraps his forearm around her throat, tightening his grip until he'd blocking her air off. Using all his weight and pulling her backwards to try and halt her attack. It's not so much the fact that he did it as the fact that she can see how frightened he is that finally snaps Tasha back to herself-

And it's only because _she_ pulls herself back that Coulson gets free.

_She and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stare at one another, and they both know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he's still breathing by her good graces. _

She scrambles backwards away from him as soon as Barton untangles them. Knocking bits and pieces of furniture out of her way, her gaze riveted on her handler, waiting for him to pull a gun and finally end this fucking… _joke_ of her trying to start a new life. For a moment Coulson holds his throat, breathing deeply, but he doesn't make a move towards his shoulder holster and Barton doesn't make a move towards his bow wither. Both men are panting and looking at her, but there's neither hatred nor fear in their gaze. _Tasha doesn't understand. _Her eyes flick without her willing them to towards the door of the safe-house and Coulson must guess where her thoughts are heading because he holds his hands up placatingly. Gesturing to Barton to help Tasha up though she backs away from the archer too when he approaches.

"Look, Agent Romanova," Coulson says, and Tasha winces when she hears how scratchy his voice sounds. "You can walk through that door right now and we'll let you. We'll give you a chance to do something better on your own, if that's what you want-"

"You don't give a fuck what I want," Tasha hisses, and though she knows that might not be true of Barton she's far too wise to believe it's not true of The Suit and his company fucking line. "You want the weapon, you got the weapon-"

"We want the agent," Coulson speaks over her. "And we don't have her yet." A pause, as he strokes a hand through his pale, brown hair. Suddenly he looks older.

_Suddenly he just looks like a man, trying to do a job._

"Look, whatever's going on, we can work through it." He throws a sardonic look at Barton. "You can't be any worse than what Clint here put me through, when he first joined the team…"

"I never tried to kill you with my bare hands, Phil," he archer says quietly.

Coulson shoots him a look. "But that's not to say that you never tried to kill me, Clint, is it?"

Barton purses his lips and looks away, chastened.

Tasha can't help the little, niggling worm of curiosity that bites into her as she wonders what _that _was about.

"Barton says all this started when we asked you to go after Korbayev," Coulson says eventually. "And if what he's told me is true then I think you might want to talk to me- or someone like me- before you screw another Eastern European bad guy and then beat the shit out of him to prove a point." He shrugs. "But if you don't even want to do that then you should go, Tasha." He looks at her pointedly.

"Nobody is going to force you to stay."

Tasha looks away at that, chagrined at the fact that her handler knows what she's been up to. Angry and betrayed by the fact that Barton has clearly been telling tales about her though she knows in his place she'd do that same- _And that just pisses her off more. _For a moment she says nothing, just stares at the two men who seem to be her entire life now. The one of them trying to be her partner, the other trying to be her- _What? Her conscience? __**She doesn't have one. **__She hasn't had one of those since she was 24 years old, huddled in a basement outside of Moscow with a needle in her arm and an experimental serum spreading like poison through her veins. _And yet… She forces herself to look at Barton and Coulson. To look at herself. Both men are staring down at her, where she's sprawled on the floor, but neither of them look like they'd dare insult her. And neither of them look like they're judging her right now. It's not something she's ever experienced before. So she takes a deep breath and makes a decision. Takes a risk. Says what she should have said five months ago, that first night they sent her after Korbayev-

_And it occurs to her that if she had simply said this earlier she might have had an easier few fucking months. _

"I don't want to work honey-trap cases any more," she says stiffly. "I know that's my speciality- why you took me on- but…" She takes a deep breath, makes herself say it. "I don't want to work like that. I- I can't. I won't."

She lets out a long, puffing sigh.

Barton's looking at her oddly, but it's Coulson who speaks. "If you didn't want to work those cases then why have you been taking them?" the agent says softly. Because every city she's hunted in these last five months, she's been there as a honey-trap. Prague, Budapest, Sofia, Warsaw. Even in Bucharest, Petrescu wasn't her target. He was what she did to herself once her target was out of the way. Coulson places a slow, un-threatening hand on her shoulder and despite her training and her emotions, Tasha doesn't flinch from it. She knows she should, but the will isn't there. "Why have you been doing this if you didn't want to, Tasha?" he's saying. "I'm responsible for you- If you weren't ready you should have said. That's why I'm here."

Officially Tasha knows that S.H.I.E.L.D. told her she didn't have to do the jobs. They _said _that they choice was hers and they would respect her decision. But she's never had a choice before and realistically- Realistically, she didn't think she'd be allowed say no. Was even a little afraid to find out about the consequences of it.

She's never made a decision and had it respected, at least, not by people in Coulson's line of work.

She purses her lips and doesn't answer, but Coulson seems to take the hint. He nods to Barton and the archer starts packing his stuff away, clearing the safe-house of all trace that they'd ever been there. After a moment Tasha starts to help, letting Coulson's question hang in the air, unanswered- not dealt with-

But when she makes it back to the States she finds a small, white business-card sitting on her dresser.

It says only one word, _Esme, _and gives a cell-number for the Tri-State area.

Tasha doesn't know how she knows it, but she's certain it's from Coulson all the same.

* * *

Милиция- Russian police

Иди на хуй, мудак- Go fuck yourself, asshole


	5. The Specialist

_Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read so all mistakes are my own. Sorry about the delay in updating, but my muse ran off to London for a while and starting fighting one Jim From IT... Ahem..._

**THE SPECIALIST**

The first time Tasha meets Esme, she's sitting in a Russian deli, eating the first decent borscht she's found since she reached the US. Wondering what she's doing here. Wondering why she even agreed to this, when she should probably be off on psychiatric leave after Bucharest. Wondering, most of all, what kind of specialist has Coulson sent her to? After all, she reasons, just because her handler thinks this woman can help her, that doesn't necessarily mean she _can _do_. _

_ And just because he thinks she can help her, _she muses darkly, _it doesn__'__t necessarily mean that she __**should. **_

But though Tasha doesn't really think this Esme person can do anything for her, she still hauled herself onto the B train and came out to Brighton Beach. Still agreed to meet the woman, and she supposes she can't back out now. So when she hears a clipped, British accent say her name- "Natalya Romanova?"- she turns and nods her head curtly. Gestures to the empty seat across from her and asks, "Won't you join me?" As if this were the most normal meeting in the world. The woman- Esme- takes her seat and as she does so Tasha takes the opportunity to look her over. She's beautiful in that understated way the English upper classes seem to like, all dark hair and peaches-and-cream complexion. Her tailored black and blue business dress cut precisely to flatter her every curve. The diamonds which glint at her ears just dazzling and understated enough to assure Tasha that they're real. The image she presents is flawless. Impeccable. High-status and unattainable. Women like this always make Tasha wonder what animal instincts rule, just underneath their skin.

_ Because the few that she__'__s seen up-close have either been broken or ruthless, or both. _

_ She wonders uneasily which category this one falls into and hopes she won__'__t get to find out. _

Not that she's going to mention that right now. No, for right now she needs to give the impression she's just another good little minion of Coulson's, another agent supporting the S.H.I.E.L.D. company line. So she smiles, makes her accent as American as possible. Subtly eases her body language, as if she'd merely been that alert because she was nervous waiting for her guest and thinks she can relax now that guest's here. "Sorry, I've been here a few minutes," she tells the woman, trying to sound friendly. "I'm famished: I hope you don't mind my starting without you-"

"Oh, no problem at all. I thought that you might." Esme shoots her a conspiratorial grin. "Philip never feeds his agents enough, I always think," she says. "I'm always amazed you poor dears don't pass out from hunger, the tight ship that man runs."

And that said, she calls the waiter over. Orders a green tea in perfectly accented Russian before smiling in return at Tasha, her point made. Namely that she knows Coulson long enough to a) know what he does for a living, b) have an opinion of his treatment of his agents and c) call him by first name. And that she speaks (by the sound of it) fluent Russian, which Tasha suspects is Esme's way of showing her that her Miss America impression is fooling no-one.

** дерьмо**, Tasha thinks. дерьмо, дерьмо, дерьмо.

_ Clearly, this is a lot worse than I thought. _

So she drops the pseudo-relaxed body language, letting her more usual alertness take over. Eyeing the woman more obviously, allowing her stare to longer on the places a concealed weapon might be kept. Esme doesn't balk at her gaze, merely meets it calmly, as if she hasn't anything to fear from Tasha- _And maybe she believes that she does not. _The evaluation ends quickly, and the results are inconclusive. Tasha's not sure whether Esme's packing, and that veryuncertainty sets her a little on edge. But still, she makes a point of smiling, inclining her head slightly.

"I'm surprised you didn't order vodka," she begins conversationally. "Isn't that what tourists normally come to Little Odessa to do?"

_ There's no need to be rude, after all. _

Esme actually laughs. "Yes, well, I doubt my drinking alcohol will help with this endeavour, Agent Romanova," she says wryly. She leans in and lowers her voice confidentially. "Besides, thinking I'm going to drink the famed Black Widow under the table is an aspiration that borders on the moronic."

_ She knows my call sign? _Tasha thinks. _**That**__**'**__**s**__ not good. _

_ And she feels the urge to let me know that, which is probably worse. _

But rather than challenge it she merely smiles, tries to keep things light. "You think you'd have to drink me under the table?" she asks instead, playfully nodding to the bar where shelf upon shelf of vodka bottles glint enticingly at them. "Why would you think that?"

"You're the one who suggested alcohol," the other woman points out. "Even though I doubt you're interested in drinking. And I can't help but notice that it was you who called me a tourist and challenged my capacity for liquor, though I've shown no interest in taking a drink either."

Esme narrows her eyes, though her tone remains placid and calm.

"Which of course begs the question of why your go-to reaction to another woman is to make that sort of power play," she says. She takes a miniscule sip of her tea. "After all, you already know you're the most beautiful, most dangerous, more than likely most intelligent person in the room, Ms. Romanova: Why indulge in these games?"

Tasha blinks. She didn't expect her methods to be understood, let alone articulated and noted. She's used to sliding things by morons, but something tells her this is not going to be like that. "Who says this is about power?" she asks instead, curious to hear what theories the woman's come up with.

_ She doubts they__'__ll hold much water, but you can never know too much about other people__'__s assumptions regarding you. _

Esme smiles. "With women like us, Natasha," she says calmly, "it's _always_ about power." She gives a delicate shrug. "It's no accident, that I ended up in the profession I ended up in. It's not accident that you did the same. Pretending that we don't want the things we do never results in an optimal outcome, at least in my experience." She puts down her teacup, looks at Tasha straight on.

"And an optimal outcome is what Philip's hoping for. That's why he brought me in."

For a moment Tasha stares at the woman, surprised by how blunt she's being. It's an occupational hazard of being surrounded by spies, that you simply become used to everyone you know being circumspect. Secrets within secrets, that's what spies do. Speaking openly about anything or anyone is difficult for them. Speaking openly to each other is unheard of. Unexpectedly Barton and his Katie-Kate pop into Tasha's head and she pushes the thought viciously away. She hates being around the pair of them, hates their insults and affection and banter though she doesn't want to examine why.

_ And she certainly doesn't want to do so in front of Coulson's special little friend_.

Her discomfort must show anyway though, because Esme's expression turns shrewd. Weighing. She looks like a blood-hound scenting prey and the fact that she's thinking of the other woman as a predator strikes Tasha as very unwelcome indeed. "You're not easy to read, if that's what's worrying you," Esme says and Tasha has to fight back a twinge of annoyance at how well the other woman judged her reaction. "I'm just very good at working out what's on other people's minds. It's my superpower, if you will." She smiles. "But right there, you thought of something that annoys you. The reaction was visceral enough, that I'd like to know what it is-"

Tasha narrows her eyes. "And why the Hell should I tell you that?" she demands, the thought of Barton and Bishop still making her feel unaccountably off balance.

Esme shrugs. "I don't know: The fact that I'm asking? The fact that it's bothering you? The fact that you have hitherto been humping, dumping and in one case beating to death Eastern European mobsters in order to deal with your stress?" She takes another sip of her tea at Tasha's annoyed expression. "What can I say? Philip had to debrief me-"

"Philip Coulson can kiss my ass," Tasha snaps crisply. "And he can go fuck himself if he thinks I'm saying anything to you-"

Esme's calm. Unruffled. Infuriating. "Well, you're more than entitled to tell him that, and not to take my help, but I think you might want to rethink that, Natasha." She gestures with her eyes to Tasha's hand and with a shock Romanova realises that she's twisting the tablecloth between her fingers viciously, her upset completely, unprofessionally obvious.

Tasha sits back down- _when did she stand up?- _and glares at Esme.

Esme gestures to their waiter and asks for the bill.

"Or you can tell me who's annoying, how and why." She shrugs. "And then, if you like, we can go trawling for some American gangsters for you to beat up. Deal?"

Tasha thinks it sounds like the worst idea ever, but she still find herself nodding warily and finishing up her meal.

* * *

дерьмо: Shit (Russian)


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